Reto Project, a brand licensee of Eastman Kodak Company, has announced the Kodak EC35, a 35mm point-and-shoot film camera priced at $34.99 (The Verge). The camera was announced on July 16, 2026 (PetaPixel via Threads) and is designed for beginners and casual newcomers curious about film (Yahoo Tech). UK pricing is set at £34.99 (Amateur Photographer).

The EC35's specifications are about as simple as a camera can get. It has a 25mm acrylic lens (acrylic is a type of plastic, which generally produces softer images than glass). The aperture is fixed at f/10, meaning the opening that lets light into the camera stays the same size every time you shoot. It has a single shutter speed of 1/100 second, which is how long the camera lets light in when you press the button. Focusing is fixed, meaning the camera does not adjust focus at all. There is no double exposure capability. You wind and rewind the film by hand. The built-in automatic flash is the only tool the camera offers to help with lighting. Power comes from a single AA battery (Amateur Photographer). The sliding lens cover, described as reminiscent of the Olympus Stylus / Mju lineup, is a slightly darker shade than the body in all colorways (The Verge).

Seven color options are available: butter yellow, lavender, powder blue, blush pink, avocado green, midnight black, and vanilla white. The palette and naming convention sit squarely in the consumer-lifestyle register, closer to kitchen-appliance or smartphone-back terminology than anything in the photographic catalog.

Reto Project's prior Kodak-branded release was the Snapic A1, a 35mm film camera priced at $99. The company has also released the Kodak Charmera (Instagram). The EC35 sits well below the Snapic A1 on price while stripping back nearly every adjustable parameter. There is no zone focusing, no exposure compensation, no multiple-exposure mode. What remains is a lens, a shutter, a flash, and a manual advance.

The broader context here is worth pausing on. A camera with a plastic lens, a fixed opening, and a single shutter speed will perform adequately in daylight or with the flash at close range, and poorly in most other conditions. None of this is a criticism of the product as positioned. The EC35 is not aimed at someone who owns a serious film camera. It is aimed at the consumer who has seen film photography on social media, wants to try it without a learning curve or a significant financial commitment, and is more likely to care how the camera looks on a strap or a shelf than how sharp the photos are.

The pricing reinforces that targeting. At $34.99, the camera itself is cheaper than many individual rolls of 35mm film, and a bundle version that includes film has been referenced (PetaPixel via Threads). The ongoing cost of film and development remains the real economic barrier to entry for new film photographers, not the camera body. By holding the hardware price below the cost of a few rolls of film, Reto Project has lowered one barrier while the other stays exactly where it was.

In this author's view, the EC35 is a logical extension of the film-photography revival that has been building over the past several years. The category has already moved through its enthusiast phase, where prices for certain older cameras on the used market reached levels that shut out casual interest. A $35 fixed-focus camera is not going to produce images that compete with those cameras, but it does offer an on-ramp that does not require scouring eBay or learning how to adjust settings. Whether that on-ramp converts enough newcomers into sustained film shooters, rather than one-roll novelties, is a question the product alone cannot answer.

The Kodak branding carries weight here. Reto Project operates as a licensee of Eastman Kodak Company (Instagram), and the Kodak name on a $35 camera lends an air of established provenance that a generic or unfamiliar brand would not. For a target audience that may not distinguish between a Kodak licensee and Kodak itself, that distinction likely does not matter. What matters is the name recognition and the implied legitimacy it confers.

For the technically inclined reader, the EC35's spec sheet tells you everything you need to know about where it sits. Fixed focus, f/10, 1/100, acrylic lens, single AA, manual advance. It is a camera reduced to its mechanical essentials, wrapped in seven pastel colorways, and priced as an impulse purchase. Whether that formula finds its audience will depend less on the camera and more on whether the social-media-driven interest in film photography continues to pull new participants into the category.